> For one thing, doctors were upset because Semmelweis' hypothesis made it look like they were the ones giving childbed fever to the women.
This, I think, is a point that needs amplifying:
Doctor hubris causing harm and even death is not an isolated incident to this case. This is alluded to with the line about how difficult it is to convince health care providers to take hand-washing seriously today. One can look to some horrifying practices in medical history to see a track record of "I'm a doctor, so I know better than you" that caused needless deaths and sometimes despicably cruel outcomes. Rosemary Kennedy's case is an example of that happening all throughout her life, with first this:
During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. (caused Rosemary's intellectual disabilities)
And then lobotomy [1].
On a personal note, my close family member is dealing with cancer. His last chemotherapy just about killed him - he lost 40 lbs in a week and went from being in full heath to severely underweight. When he told the doctor that he just could not do another therapy session - he feels that it will kill him - the doctor said exactly the above - "I'm a doctor, so I know better than you." He left that doctor - his tumor was already gone, he continued his last radiotherapy sessions. He was just like the people mentioned in this article [2] -
The surprising part was that people who were feeling the best at the start of the therapy ended up feeling the worst. They are the ones most harmed and who had the most to lose... without significant benefit for their cancer.
Sorry to hear about your family member's bad experience, but glad to hear they're on the mend. I'd highly recommend Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal which has a lot to say about doctor hubris in treating the terminally ill. He describes how the patient should guide the treatment based on their own preferences, informed by the doctor's expertise.
This, I think, is a point that needs amplifying:
Doctor hubris causing harm and even death is not an isolated incident to this case. This is alluded to with the line about how difficult it is to convince health care providers to take hand-washing seriously today. One can look to some horrifying practices in medical history to see a track record of "I'm a doctor, so I know better than you" that caused needless deaths and sometimes despicably cruel outcomes. Rosemary Kennedy's case is an example of that happening all throughout her life, with first this:
During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. (caused Rosemary's intellectual disabilities)
And then lobotomy [1].
On a personal note, my close family member is dealing with cancer. His last chemotherapy just about killed him - he lost 40 lbs in a week and went from being in full heath to severely underweight. When he told the doctor that he just could not do another therapy session - he feels that it will kill him - the doctor said exactly the above - "I'm a doctor, so I know better than you." He left that doctor - his tumor was already gone, he continued his last radiotherapy sessions. He was just like the people mentioned in this article [2] -
The surprising part was that people who were feeling the best at the start of the therapy ended up feeling the worst. They are the ones most harmed and who had the most to lose... without significant benefit for their cancer.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy#Lobotomy 2 - https://time.com/3968918/when-chemotherapy-does-more-harm-th...